Mike Andes argues your primary home isn't an asset. It barely keeps pace with inflation, locks up cash in a down payment, and bleeds money through mortgage insurance, property taxes, and repairs. Investment real estate that generates cash flow is wealth-building. Your house is a lifestyle choice.
Buying a house, worst investment you'll ever make in your entire life. I think if you're going to be in a house for more than 5 years, it's probably still a good move. I think we should be thinking about a house much more a matter of your lifestyle and is it something that is part of your identity and your family and building a family. But in terms of an actual investment, it usually barely gets above inflation, uh, in the long run. Now, in the past 5 years, like everything's inflated, but that's usually not the case with the real estate. It moves very slowly. And a lot of times people put all of their liquid cash into the down payment and it locks them up for 5 or 10 years from investing in anything else. And that could be a better opportunity or investment that could double or triple the amount of their return. And also people just think if you buy a house, it's free, when in reality there's like property mortgage insurance, there is insurance, there's maintenance, there's repairs. There's a lot that goes into just maintaining the asset. And in my opinion, if the asset requires me to constantly pour money into it, it's not necessarily an asset because if I had to sell it, I have to go buy another one. And I'd be spending the same. So like I just take my equity and I move into another house. So I wouldn't really look at it as an asset or a wealth generator for your own personal house. Buying real estate and having it cash flow, appreciate, and then be able to depreciate that against your taxes, that starts to look interesting.
